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BookJ^^feS^ 



ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 

AT THE 

GRIDIRON DINNER 

(NEW WILLARD) 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 
FEBRUARY 26, 1916 



(SO MANY REQUESTS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED AT THE WHITE HOUSE FROM 

THOSE ATTENDING THE DINNER THAT THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS BE 

PUBLISHED THAT BOTH THE PRESIDENT AND THE GRIDIRON 

CLUB HAVE CONSENTED TO ITS PUBLICATION ) 




WASHINGTON 
1919 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

MAR 2 5 1937 

D!V::;0N.OF 0OC!.'":r'T3 



ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT WILSON 

AT THE GRIDIRON DINNER, FEBRUARY 26. 1916. 



Mr. TOASTMASTEK AND GkNTLKMKN : 

I have very little to say to-night except to express my warm aj:)- 
preciation of the invariable courtesy of this club and of the recep- 
tion you liave so generously accorded me. I find that I am seldom 
tempted to say anything nowadays unless somebody starts something, 
and to-night nobody has started anything. 

Your talk, Mr. Toastmaster, has been a great deal about candidacy 
for the presidency. It is not a new feeling on my part, but one which 
I entertain with a greater intensity than formerl)^ that a man who 
seeks the Presidency of the United States for anything that it will 
bring to him is an audacious fool. The responsibilities of the office 
ought to sober a man even before he approaches it. One of the 
difficulties of the office seldom appreciated, I dare saj', is that it is 
very difficult to think while so many people are talking, and particu- 
larly while so many people are talking in a way that obscures counsel 
and is entirely off the point. 

The point in national affairs, gentlemen, never lies along the lines 
of expediency. It always rests in the field of principle. The United 
States was not founded upon any principle of expediency; it was 
lounded upon a profound principle of human liberty and of human- 
ity, and whenever it bases its policy upon any other foundations 
than those it builds on the sand and not upon solid rock. It seems 
CO me that the most enlightening thing a man can do is suggested 
by something which the Vice President said to-night. He com- 
plained that he found men who, wdien their attention was called to 
the signs of spring, did not see the blue heaven, did not see the 
movement of the free clouds, did not think of the great spaces of the 
quiet continent, but thought only of some immediate and press- 
ing piece of business. It seems to me that if you do not think of the 
things that lie beyond and away from and disconnected from this 
scene in which we attempt to think and conclude, you will inevi- 
tably be led astray. I w^ould a great deal rather know what they are 
talking about around quiet firesides all over this country than what 
they are talking about in the cloakrooms of Congress. I would a 

98552L — 19 (3) 



great deal rather know what the men on the trains and by the way- 
side and in the shops and on the farms are thinking about and 
yearning for than hear any of the vociferous proclamations of policy 
which it is so easy to hear and so easy to read by picking up any 
scrap of printed paper. There is only one way to hear these things, 
and that is constantly to go back to the fountains of American action. 
Those fountains are not to be found in any recently discovered 
sources. 

Senator Harding was saying just now that we ought to try when 
we are a hundred million strong to act in the same simplicity of 
principle that our forefathers acted in when we were three million 
strong. I heard somebody say — I do not know the exact statistics — 
that the present population of the United States is one hundred and 
three millions. If there are three million thinking the same things 
that that original three million thought, the hundred million will 
be saved for an illustrious future. They were ready to stake every- 
thing for an idea, and that idea was not expediency, but justice. 
And the infinite difficulty of public affairs, gentlemen, is not to dis- 
cover the signs of the heavens and the directions of the wind, but to 
square the things you do by the not simple but complicated standards 
of justice. Justice has nothing to do with expediency. Justice has 
nothing to do with any temporary standard whatever. It is rooted 
and grounded in the fundamental instincts of humanity. 

America ought to keep out of this war. She ought to keep out of 
this war at the sacrifice of everj'thing except this single thing upon 
which her character and history are founded, her sense of humanity 
and justice. If she sacrifices that, she has ceased to be America ; she 
has ceased to entertain and to love the traditions which have made 
us proud to be Americans, and when we go about seeking safety at 
the expense of humanity, then I for one will believe that I have al- 
ways been mistaken in what I have conceived to be the spirit of 
American history. 

You never can tell your direction except by long measurements. 
You can not establish a line by two posts; you have got to have 
three at least to know whether they are straight with anything, and 
the longer your line the more certain your measurement. There is 
only one way in which to determine how the future of the United 
States is going to be projected, and that is by looking back and see- 
ing which way the lines ran which led up to the present moment of 
power and of opportunity. There is no doubt about that. There is 
no question what the roll of honor in America is. The roll of honor 
consists of the names of men who have squared their conduct by 
ideals of duty. There is no one else upon the roster ; there is no one 



else "whose name we care to remember when we measure things upon 
a national scale. And I wish that whenever an impulse of impatience 
comes upon us, whenever an impulse to settle a thing some short way 
tempts us, we might close the door and take down some old stories of 
what American idealists and statesmen did in the past, and not let 
any counsel in that does not sound in the authentic voice of Ameri- 
can tradition. Then we shall be certain what the lines of the future 
are, because we shall know we are steering by the lines of the past. 
We shall know that no temporary convenience, no temporary expedi- 
ency, will lead us either to be rash or to be cowardly. I would bo 
just as much ashamed to be rash as I would to be a coward. Valor 
is self-respecting. Valor is circumspect. Valor strikes only when 
it is right to strike. Valor withholds itself from all small implica- 
tions and entanglements and waits for the great opportunity when 
the sword will flash as if it carried the light of heaven upon its blade. 



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